The Air Force base was a graveyard of twisted steel and scorched concrete. In the center of the devastation, General Thaddeus Ross was dying. His breathing was a wet, rattling sound in the silence that followed the Abomination's departure. One of his lungs had collapsed, and his vision was swimming in a red haze of agony.
But Ross wasn't a man who knew how to let go. His fingers, broken and blood-slicked, clawed at the floor. He wasn't crawling toward an exit or a medic; he was dragging his shattered body toward the high-security vault at the back of the primary laboratory. He knew the protocols. He knew the risks. But more than anything, he knew that if he died now, Emil Blonsky would be the one who won.
"Not... like this..." Ross hissed, a bubble of blood popping on his lips.
He reached the terminal. With a trembling hand, he punched in the override code. The heavy lead glass slid back, revealing a single, glowing vial of Bruce Banner's processed blood. It was the "Prometheus" sample—the most concentrated batch they had. Beside it sat the auxiliary Gamma emitter, a portable unit designed for localized cellular bombardment.
Ross didn't hesitate. He didn't have the time for a sterile injection. He smashed the vial and swallowed the viscous, metallic-tasting liquid directly. Then, with his last ounce of strength, he slammed his fist into the 'Cycle Start' button on the Gamma device.
A roar of emerald light filled the room, followed immediately by a searing heat that felt like his very marrow was being boiled. Ross screamed, but the sound was quickly drowned out by the thundering heartbeat of something new waking up inside him. His consciousness flickered and died, swallowed by a sea of crimson rage.
Whoosh... whoosh... whoosh...
The rhythmic thrum of heavy-lift transport helicopters eventually pulled Ross back to the surface. He felt... different. There was no pain. Instead, there was a vibrating, electric sense of vitality that felt like he could punch a hole through the moon.
"Ross? Ross, talk to me! Are you alive in there?"
Mark Sherman's voice sounded muffled, like it was coming from underwater. Ross opened his eyes. He was lying in a crater of glass and melted plastic. Mark was standing over him, flanked by a squad of tactical soldiers who looked like they were ready to open fire at the slightest movement.
Ross stood up. He didn't just stand; he rose with a fluid, predatory grace that he hadn't possessed in forty years. He looked down at his hands. They were huge, corded with muscle, and glowing with a faint, low-level thermal heat.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Mark," Ross said. His voice was deeper, vibrating with a tectonic resonance.
Mark Sherman stepped back, his hand instinctively reaching for the sidearm he didn't even know how to use properly. "My god, Ross... your skin. You're... you're glowing."
Ross looked at his reflection in a shard of reinforced glass. He wasn't green like Banner. He was a deep, scorched crimson. His eyes were glowing pits of yellow fire. He felt the heat radiating off his body, a literal "Thunderbolt" of energy waiting to be unleashed.
"The experiment was a success," Ross growled, a dark satisfaction curling his lip. "Blonsky thought he was the only one who could evolve. He forgot who was in charge of the program."
Mark scrutinized the giant before him. "Are you still in there, Thaddeus? Or am I talking to a monster that just happens to have your memories?"
Ross let out a short, barking laugh. "You want me to list the offshore accounts we used to fund the 1998 black-ops in the Gulf? Or maybe you want to talk about that night in Vegas when you lost the Sherman family's yacht in a poker game?"
Mark's tension visibly drained, replaced by a mixture of awe and horror. "Fine. It's you. But Ross, look at yourself. You're a walking nuke."
"I am a General," Ross corrected him, his fists clenching. As he grew angrier, the temperature in the room spiked. The soldiers around him began to sweat, their gear clicking as the plastic components softened. "Where did Blonsky go? Give me a heading."
"Pennsylvania," Mark said, checking a tablet. "The satellite tracked him heading toward the mutant zone. It's a mess over there. The President has already authorized an autonomous state, but if that yellow freak starts a massacre, the whole deal is off. We need him neutralized, Ross. Fast."
"I don't care about your mutant deals, Mark," Ross said, his body beginning to swell further as his "Red Hulk" form stabilized. "He destroyed my base. He killed my men. I'm going to rip his heart out and show it to him before he dies."
Without waiting for a transport, Ross turned and sprinted toward the hangar. He hit the wall at full speed, shattering the reinforced concrete like it was drywall, and leaped into the air. He cleared half a mile in a single bound, a red blur streaking across the desert toward the northeast.
Meanwhile, miles away, in a deep underground chamber beneath the Wing Chun Academy, the air was unnaturally still.
Huang Wen sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. Around him, dozens of ethereal, miniature swords danced in a complex, interlocking pattern. They weren't physical objects; they were manifestations of pure Qi and sword intent.
Suddenly, the swords stopped their frantic spinning. They converged on a single point between Huang Wen's eyebrows, merging into a faint, golden mark that glowed with a blinding intensity before fading into his skin.
Clang!
The sound of a legendary blade being unsheathed echoed through the chamber, though no physical sword was present. Huang Wen opened his eyes. Two beams of pure sword light shot out from his pupils, carving deep, perfectly smooth gouges into the titanium alloy wall forty feet away.
"So... this is the Law," Huang Wen whispered, his voice sounding like it was being spoken by a thousand blades at once.
He had spent this seclusion diving deep into the 'Twenty-Third Sword' of Dugu Jian. He hadn't just learned the move; he had deconstructed the very concept of the Sword Dao. By utilizing the epic-level mark and his own immense spiritual foundation, he had stabilized the "Heaven-Destroying" version of the technique. He had touched the boundary of the Epic Realm.
His physical power hadn't increased ten-fold, but his understanding had. To Huang Wen, the world no longer looked like matter and energy—it looked like a series of lines that could be cut.
"Silly Girl?" he called out.
The blue projection of the AI appeared instantly, her digital eyes sparkling with a mix of relief and excitement. "Brother Huang Wen! You're finally awake!"
"How long was I under?" Huang Wen asked, stretching his limbs. He felt like he had been napping for a long afternoon, but the depth of his sword intent suggested otherwise.
"Ninety-seven days," Silly Girl replied. "Three months and some change."
Huang Wen froze. "Three months? I felt like I was gone for a weekend. Damn... time really does fly when you're playing with the laws of the universe. Give me the breakdown. What did I miss?"
Silly Girl began a rapid-fire summary. As the data poured into Huang Wen's mind, his expression shifted from curiosity to genuine shock.
"Charles is dead? The Phoenix woke up?" Huang Wen's brow furrowed. "That shouldn't have happened yet. And Magneto is trying to build a kingdom in Pennsylvania? Those old geezers in Washington actually agreed to it?"
He shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. "I leave the stove for five minutes and the whole house catches fire. And what's this about a yellow monster?"
"Emil Blonsky," Silly Girl explained. "He tried to attack the Academy while you were away. Xiaoqiang and the others handled it, but he escaped and mutated further into a giant yellow creature. He's currently moving toward the mutant gathering point. And there's a high-energy red signature following him—it's General Ross."
"Red Hulk and Abomination," Huang Wen muttered. "The universe really loves its symmetry. If they collide in the middle of a mutant colony led by a corrupted Jean Grey... Pennsylvania is going to become a hole in the ground."
He thought of Logan, Storm, and the kids from the school. He had spent months teaching them, guiding them. He couldn't just sit back and watch them get caught in the crossfire of two gamma-irradiated titans and a cosmic firebird.
"Silly Girl, keep monitoring the school. I'm going to head out."
Huang Wen didn't use a door. He didn't even use the stairs. His body dissolved into a shower of golden sword-light, bypassing the physical dimensions of the room. A second later, he appeared high in the sky over Pennsylvania.
The scene below was chaotic. Thousands of mutants were huddled in makeshift camps, their faces filled with a mixture of hope and terror. At the center of the camp stood Jean Grey. Even from this height, Huang Wen could feel the heat radiating from her. It wasn't just heat; it was a hungry, ancient hunger that wanted to consume everything.
Jean had just returned from her "conversation" with Charles. She looked drained, her eyes flickering between her natural green and a terrifying, molten gold. As Huang Wen descended, his presence was like a bucket of ice water being dropped into a furnace.
Jean's head snapped up. Her telepathic barriers, usually impenetrable, felt like paper against the sharp, refined intent of Huang Wen's soul.